Wednesday, 16 October 2013

The MOOC ended last week with Class 5. It will remain open until
the end of Sunday, 20 Oct (all time zones). Statements of Completion
will be emailed once the course closes. The course material will remain
available up indefinitely at:

We
are planning to re-run Data Mining with Weka early next year
(probably March). And your enthusiastic feedback has encouraged us to
think about a more advanced version. But it does depend on support from
Waikato University, and we are waiting until this course is over before
commencing that conversation.

In
the good old days, Weka was an externally funded research project. But
that ended long ago. Both Weka and this MOOC are supported entirely by
our Department and University. If you think these efforts are worthwhile
and would like to support them financially, that would be lovely!
Please do so here:

Monday, 7 October 2013

Class 5 broadens out to consider some more general issues. It's a short week, with just four topics:

5.1: The data mining process

5.2: Pitfalls and pratfalls

5.3: Data mining and ethics

5.4: Summary

The
post-course assessment opens on Wed Oct 9. Everything will remain open
for one further week, until Sunday Oct 20, when the course will be
closed.

We will also ask you to complete a survey for your opinions of the MOOC.

We
will probably run the course again, perhaps in late summer -- I mean NZ
summer! -- maybe in March 2014. And we are contemplating a follow-up MOOC
that covers topics we couldn't fit into this course. But our ability to
continue with MOOCs will depend on the success of this one, and the
number of people who complete it successfully will be a key metric. Thus
I once again urge you to do the assessments for my sake, if not your
own :-)

Please keep up the help on the course forum -- we greatly value your assistance.We'll soon put out a short (optional) video to discuss a few issues that have arisen in Class 4.

Monday, 30 September 2013

This class introduces some more advanced methods and techniques. The topics are:

4.1: Classification boundaries

4.2: Linear regression

4.3: Classification by regression

4.4: Logistic regression

4.5: Support vector machines

4.6: Ensemble learning

The
last three are high-performance contemporary algorithms. I aim to give
you a conceptual understanding of what they do and how they work, but
not the gory details. You have to learn to live and work in a world
where you don't understand everything. You will see some mathematics in
Lessons 4.2, 4.3 and 4.5. But don't worry: I'll explain it, and anyway
you don't have to fully understand the math.

Next week is the last. And it's short: Class 5 has only 4 lessons, not the usual 6. And it's more relaxed: no math at all.

It's great to see so many people helping each other on the course forum. Please keep it up -- we greatly value your assistance.

Some people have been asking about the music
that opens each lesson video of Data Mining with
Weka. It’s the start of the Allegro movement of Mozart’s Divertimento No. 2,
arranged for three clarinets by Michael Whewell.

Every week for many years now, clarinetists
meet at my house to play music for fun. We joke that we’re slowly changing from
a music group that eats beforehand to a dinner group that plays afterwards! We
share food, wine, good company – and, of course, music. We play classical
music, contemporary music, ethnic music, jazz – right now I’m obsessed with
tangos by the Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. I have a large collection
of music for clarinet duets, trios, quartets, quintets, and sextets.

Here’s the lot of us – six, along with some
additional fans (including a garden gnome) – at Woodside House on beautiful Waiheke Island near Auckland, where the opening music was recorded.

The Mozart that opens Data Mining with Weka was played by three of us (I mistakenly imply
four in one of the videos). Here we are, this time in my house. That’s Paul, me
in the middle, and Sarah.

You can hear more music by going to my home page; I’ll play another tune
every time you refresh the page.

Ian

The music that closes each video, and the matching opening music for the Questions videos, is specially composed for Data Mining with Weka by Teresa Connors of DivaTproductions Inc.

Originally
from the musically rich island of Newfoundland, Teresa studied both
Composition and Opera singing at Dalhousie University (in Nova
Scotia,
Canada) as well as the Banff Center for the Arts. She has recently
completed a Master of Music degree in the Music programme here at the University of Waikato.More of Teresa's work is available on her Vimeo channel.

Monday, 23 September 2013

It's good to see so many people having fun with the course! A few errors in Class 2 Activity answers have been reported, and corrected in the MOOC.

The mid-course assessment is now available. Do it when you have finished Class 2 (although it will remain open for the rest of the course). The final assessment will appear during week 5.

My goal is to enable you to learn as much as possible from this course, and I recognize that doing the assessments may not be a priority for you. However, our ability to mount follow-up MOOCs will depend on the success of this one as perceived by my University -- and the number of people who complete it successfully will be a key metric. Thus I urge you to do the assessments for my sake, if not your own :-)

We will soon put out a short (optional) video to discuss a few interesting issues that have arisen in Class 2.

cheers, and keep going! Weeks 3 and 4 are the central part of this course.

Monday, 16 September 2013

It's good to see so many people having fun with the course! I hope that
the teething problems with installing Weka, accessing the book excerpts,
and locating the activities are now solved.

The activities are a crucial part of the course: they're where most
people will do their actual learning! However, they do not form part of
the assessment, so don't be scared to get wrong answers.

"Data Mining with Weka" has been designed so that participants at many
different levels can learn as much as possible – and complete the course
successfully. You don't have to do the reading. All you must do to
succeed

are the mid-course and final assessments -- which you can try as
often as you like. The mid-course assessment will become available this
Friday (Sept 20) and remain open for the rest of the course. The final
assessment will appear during week 5.We plan to put out a short (optional) video later today to discuss a few questions that people have asked.

Monday, 15 April 2013

Thanks to everyone who is participating in the beta test of WekaMOOC. We plan to close the beta next week so we can concentrate on preparing the full course for later in 2013. Filling in the survey at the end of the lessons will help us improve the full version of Data Mining with Weka.

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

The beta test of Data Mining with Weka is now ready to go. It is a closed beta test so only those with specific invitations can participate. Soon after the beta test is concluded we will open registrations for the full Data Mining with Weka MOOC. You can follow updates on the WekaMOOC twitter feed.We hope to learn about the best way to present the material and configure the Google CourseBuilder platform so that the full MOOC, later this year, can run smoothly.﻿
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